Café Javas ceiling collapses, journalists denied access

The restaurant located at Victoria Mall in Entebbe has come under fire over alleged negligence after pictures of the collapsed ceiling made rounds on Whatsapp Media.

In a statement by Mr Paul Mwirigi, the Head of Marketing for Knight Frank Uganda who are the official managers of Victoria Mall, the ceiling board collapsed on Wednesday night, but no one was injured.

“As you may be aware or may have witnessed, there were parts of the ceiling boards inside the Cafe Java premises in Victoria Mall Entebbe that fell down last night. This happened in the evening past 9pm towards the closing hours of business on Wednesday 5th April. We’d like to confirm that there were no injuries or casualties sustained as a result of this incident,” the statement reads in part.

“At the moment our primary concern is for the safety of all involved; especially our beloved customers, therefore we are undertaking thorough investigations to ascertain the cause of this incident. Together with our dear tenant we shall also institute immediate measures to avoid a repeat of the same. We wish Cafe Java a quick turnaround in re-opening the doors to their amazing meals and ambience,” the statement continues.

Meanwhile, following the caving in of the ceiling at café javas, private security operatives belonging to GMS Security Company have this morning barred journalists from accessing the scene.

Cafe Javas is not out of bounds. Photo by Paul Adude.

The security personnel stopped journalists from accessing the mall or taking pictures of Café Javas restaurant saying that they had orders from management not to allow any media personnel near the enterprises outlet.

When contacted the O.C CID Entebbe main police station, Zachariah Mbabazi told daily monitor that the management in a similar way was reluctant to offer any information to police about the incident.

“There are no reports so far of any injuries but the incident happened last night and they (management) never informed police, police also got information through Whatsapp. It is the people who received a message through Whatsapp that informed police,” he said.

He further said that police is going to deploy its architectural team to investigate the time of the incident and cause of the ceiling caving in.

“They didn’t want to tell us because we got information from social media, they (Cafe Java’s) didn’t want to alert the community, their business being good they didn’t want their business to be damaged” he said.

However, the management of Café Javas sent a statement to the media saying they regretted the incident but were grateful that no one was injured.

“This is to inform you that we had an unfortunate incident at our Victoria Mall Entebbe Branch last night 5th April 2017 when part of the ceiling board collapsed. Fortunately no one was hurt, and we are grateful to God for that. We take the safety of our customers and staff very seriously and hence we shall close the Entebbe branch to ensure that full repairs are made,” a statement signed off by management stated.